Reprinted from the Western Massachusetts Jewish Ledger with permission of the author.
November 17, 2005
Julie Zuckman, a Northampton, Mass., resident with plans to become a puppeteer, doesn't regard herself as religious or even spiritual, and neither does her husband, Peter Haas, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
But their son, David Haas, a 12-year-old adopted from Peru in 1993, feels differently--so much so that the family had "quite a set-to" on the first night of Passover, Zuckman recalls, laughing at the memory.
"He thought we were going through [the seder] too quickly and weren't being serious enough," she says, adding that this, of course, came after she prepared the dinner, invited the guests and "knocked myself out." The next evening, when the family attended a friend's more religious seder, "he was thrilled. Everybody wore a kippa, they sang songs and they didn't skip."
On a similar but more somber note, when Zuckman's mother-in-law died three years ago, David "was the one who wanted to light yahrzeit candles and keep the traditions," Zuckman says. "He had this intuitive sense that we needed rituals, so I took out my siddur and we did Kaddish every night."
In these and other ways, Zuckman continues, he "brought me along."
Her experience is often the same in other families who have adopted children from other cultures and are raising them as Jews. Either because the child is more spiritual than his parents, as David certainly is, or because the parents want to impart a sense of Jewish identity, adopting cross-culturally often moves a family to a greater affiliation with the Jewish community.
Adoption, along with intermarriage, is also changing the face of American Jewry, a population made up mostly of Eastern European or Ashkenazic Jews, according to Jewish educators and spiritual leaders in the Pioneer Valley. When Rabbi Mark Shapiro, for instance, attends a rehearsal or performance of the children's choir at Sinai Temple, a Reform synagogue in Springfield, Mass., he sees many faces that "are not classically Jewish." Two of his congregants, each with a daughter from China, say at least a third of the choir's members are now Asian children.
By all accounts, cross-cultural adoption among Jewish parents has been increasing for at least 20 years. The National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, conducted by United Jewish Communities, reports that slightly more than five percent of all Jewish families had adopted children in the household, accounting for about 35,000 children.
Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, an independent think tank in San Francisco, believes the number may be even higher. "It's been a phenomenon now for about two generations," he said, "and we see it in local studies, too."
The factors driving that increase are the age at which American Jews get married, which is later than the age for Americans at large, and a lower fertility rate among Jewish women, according to the survey.
Other studies show that, of all the adopted children in Jewish households, more and more are coming from other cultures, such as China, Russia and South America. One estimate places the number of children born overseas at 25 percent.
In the Pioneer Valley, few families offer a more compelling portrait of this trend than the two formed by Jill and Patti Goldstein.
Sisters who grew up in Longmeadow, Mass., where they live today, both are single, both are social workers--and, within four years of the other, both adopted a baby girl from China. Today, their daughters--Jill's Danielle, 7, and Patti's Hallie, 11--could be sisters themselves, both mothers said in recent interviews. They often play together, do homework together and, in general, adore each other, as cousins often do.
Although Patti, 49, is the younger sister, it was she who first chose to adopt, a decision she reached in her mid-30s, as she found herself growing older without the child she always wanted.
"I never pictured myself being childless," Patti said, adding that she has worked with kids since she was 11, when the YMCA hired her as a counselor for one of its camps. She works today as a social worker in the Springfield Public Schools.
Still, Patti never thought seriously about adoption until 12 years ago, the year before she adopted Hallie, when she attended Rosh Hashanah services at Temple Emanuel of Andover, Mass., the synagogue led by her brother, Rabbi Robert Goldstein. While there, Patti recalled, she spoke with another Jewish woman and the 3-year-old she adopted from Guatamala, discovering, in the process, that a seed had been planted.
Three other discoveries helped cement her decision, said Patti, who read scores of books and articles about the subject. At the time, she learned, the healthiest children available for adoption were said to be girls from China, an important consideration for a single mother without the resources to care for a child with health problems. Moreover, girls from China were among the youngest children who could be adopted, which, in the view of experts, held the promise of fewer, if any, emotional problems later in life.
Just as important, if not more so, is what she learned about Jewish law and tradition, which considers adoption "a good thing to do," she said.
Bolstered by the information, Patti traveled to China on September 1, 1994, through a trip organized by Alliance for Children, an adoption agency in Wellesley, Mass. She and Hallie met at a hotel in Nanjing, about two hours away from the baby's orphanage, on September 5, an occasion mother and daughter still celebrate each year.
For Jill, the path toward adoption began with the same conversation in Andover that so motivated her sister, but her thinking solidified as she fell in love with Hallie. She spent many hours with her new niece in the months after Patti's adoption, calling herself a "lucky aunt" and watching as Hallie began growing into a warm, active child with many interests.
"I wanted to have a child, and I hadn't found anyone I wanted to have a child with," said Jill, who was married for six years in the early 1980s. In addition, she "always had an interest in China" and began to notice the similarities in Chinese and Jewish cultures, both of which, she said, place an emphasis on family and education.
Finally, with the help of a private agency in Brookline, Mass., Jill received a picture of Danielle and traveled to China seven years ago to adopt the baby, then 11 months. The two met at a hotel in Chansha, the capital of Hunan Province, and boarded a plane to the U.S. within two weeks of their meeting.
Whenever any parent or set of parents adopts a child, they have embarked on "a lifelong process," said Susan Phillips, the director of AdoptionLink, a program of the Jewish Family Service of Western Massachusetts. She also believes that the biggest issue in raising a child is "identity formation."
At some point, Phillips said, all children wonder about things like where they received their physical traits or why some of those features might be different from those of their parents. The questions they begin to ponder, normally in adolescence, might include, "Who am I in relationship to my parents? Who am I in relationship to my peers? Who am I in relationship to the world?"
Being Jewish adds yet another layer to the youngster's search, especially "if you're a child from China, and you're 12 or 13, working toward your Bar or Bat Mitzvah," Phillips said. "They wonder where they fit in."
All the families interviewed for this article are trying to raise their children as Jews, as Americans and, depending on where they were born, as Chinese, Korean, Russian or South American--efforts that are both symbolic and substantive.
Jill and Patti Goldstein, for instance, named their daughters after relatives, as Jewish custom dictates, and saved their Chinese names, which are now middle names. Danielle's middle name is Guoxing, meaning "Fragrant Country," while Hallie's is Jiang Hong or "Red River."
The merged names have given Dani and Hallie "something from their past in China and something from the heritage of their adoptive families," Patti said.
Some families have even traveled back to their children's native countries.
Dr. Deborah R. Starr, head of school at Heritage Academy in Longmeadow, Mass., said she and her husband, Howard, journeyed to South Korea nine years ago with their twins, now 18, whom they adopted as babies. Zuckman and Haas traveled with David in 2003 to Peru, where their son met his birth mother.
But children often respond to the most well-intentioned efforts in ways their parents don't anticipate.
The Starr twins, Selena and Elianna, lost interest in Korean things at 11 or 12, their mother said, adding that they simply thought of themselves as American "and enough of the picture books." In another episode, Starr recalled, she suggested they wear traditional Korean dresses at their Bat Mitzvah, "and they looked at me like I was from Mars."
Only in recent months has her daughters' interest in their own history begun to re-emerge, said Starr, a resident of Suffield, Conn. Both have expressed a desire to visit Korea again and search for their birth records.
Harold Berman, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Springfield, said issues of identity have begun to come up in conversations with his son Micah, now 6, who was adopted from Russia.
"He has asked questions like, basically, why was I [his father] born Jewish and why wasn't he born Jewish," said Berman, who recently adopted another Russian child, Ilana, 2. "We've answered, in the most positive sense, that he gets to choose and we try to give him role models of others who weren't born Jewish but chose it … I think the most important thing for a child is to get across that it's normative."
That message appears to have worked in Micah's case, as well as for David Haas, the Starr sisters and the Goldstein kids. All the children have gone through conversions; all have attended either Hebrew school or Jewish day school; and all seem just as comfortable being Jewish as they do being American.
"The people at my Hebrew school and Sunday school say you should feel proud of being Jewish," said David, who attends Beit Ahavah, a Reform synagogue in Florence, Mass. He has taken that advice to heart, he added.
Dani Goldstein, a student at Sinai Temple, recalled how one of her friends, another girl from China, told her that "most Chinese children are Christian." But Dani responded in a way that would have made her mother proud, telling her friend, "I'm different and it's nice being different."
As involved as the children are in the Jewish community, their parents are unaware of any bias or discrimination they may have faced from fellow Jews.
One local rabbi, David Dunn Bauer of the Jewish Community of Amherst, said he is sure that, "on some organic level, there's still a sense of awkwardness or confusion on the street. There's still some note of surprise from people." But, in his view, that doesn't translate into discrimination.
He added that members of the Jewish community still make many presumptions about what constitutes a Jewish family or who appears to be a Jew. "There are lots of things that are antiquated or obsolete which haven't slipped from the community's consciousness."
The area's synagogues and Jewish day schools have taken steps to fight those presumptions, emphasizing that differences are not only positive, but normal in the Jewish world.
Sandra Warren, principal of the Solomon Schechter Day School of the Pioneer Valley, said she talks to her staff every year "about the importance of making differences feel acceptable … There are lots of differences among kids, and you don't want them to get the idea that it's a big secret," said Warren.
Rabbi Shapiro, noting that Jewish law considers adoption as much of a blessing as giving birth, said his congregation includes children with Asian faces. "But once they become members of our community, they have Jewish faces, too. Far more important than the face of American Jewry is the soul and practice of American Jewry."
Adoption Resources
Association of Jewish Family and Children's Agencies: Many of this group's nearly 150 member agencies offer services to families interested in adoption, to birth mothers, to families who have adopted and to people who have been adopted. For information on services in a particular community, call the association at (800) 634-7346 or write to AJFCA@ajfca.org. The association's Website, ajfca.org, also has an Adoption Information Directory in which you can search for member agencies.
Jewish Multiracial Network: Offers online resources, engages in advocacy and organizes annual retreats, holiday celebrations and other events to build a more diverse Jewish community. For information, visit JewishMultiracialNetwork.org, call Cynthia Weinger at (212) 242-5586 or write to cynthia@isabellafreedman.org.
Stars of David International: Provides support and information to prospective parents, adoptive families and adult adoptees. To contact the national organization, call (800) 782-7349 or write to StarsDavid1@aol.com. To find a local chapter, visit starsofdavid.org.
Other support groups: Groups like Families with Children from China, Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption and Latin America Parents Association support families who have adopted or are seeking to adopt.
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